Hi all! I have a general type question, regarding practical issues of Software Development. I am very interested to know the steps, someone must follow to create a complete software application. Personally, I have an indermediate knowledge of C , Java and PHP and I know to use some scripting and I am mainly dealing with web development, so I am not a pure programmer and I know almost nothing about creating desktop applications( no matter the language ), beyond inventing an algorithm or find some, creating source code and executing it from the command prompt. So I would appreciate any kind of help, regarding ideas and common practices for creating a GUI, how to organize files to work as a whole, how to create an installer, what are the restrictions, documentation,etc. I know that my question is very,very general but I want to learn some general procedures and steps that someone must follow tp produce "professional" software in some language,no matter which(in fact I am particularly interested about C and Java, but I can understand in other languages as well). So I appreciate any help, links about tutorials,books or whatever this can be. Thanks in advance.

I recognize that you may not be a native English speaker, but some immediate advice I would give you is to divide your post up into paragraphs.

Maybe I'm just easily distracted, but I found it difficult to read your post.

Well Software Development has many different approaches. I would start by reading Software development processes. You can also learn about some of the different processes there.

In generall the process goes like this:

#1 Generminal idea: Hey I got an idea for a program that will...
#2 Requirements gathering -- list out what the program should do
#3 Design
#3.5 IF NEEDED GOTO #2 (sometimes #1)
#4 Implementation -- write the program...
#4.5 Refine Design (often in implementation you find lessons learned).
#4.8 IF NEEDED GOTO #4 (sometimes earlier).
#5 Testing
#5.5 Refine implementation...

As you can see there is often a good amount of looping. This is why most of the "methodologies" are iterative in nature.

For developing Windows applications, you should check out Microsoft's Visual Studio. The Express Editions are free to download here. Visual Studio offers project templates for Windows applications, as well as Setup & Deployment projects for installing your program. It's entirely possible to create a complete Windows application, with a GUI and all, in C and Java (the languages you already know). However, Visual Studio definitely makes it easier and faster with a WYSIWYG form editor.

There isn't a general step by step procedure for creating a GUI for desktop software, because its different with each platform. You need to specify what OS and platform you are targetting, and from there you can either look how to hook into the systems api, or look at available libraries that will handle it for you.

If you are coming from purely a web development background then this will probably be the biggest learning curve, since standardized http makes it so easy for web apps to handle user interfaces.

Well, I am not a native English speaker of course, but I think I'm doing well enough in English. That said, I don't mean that you are not right. But sometimes, being in hurry, you can make mistakes even in elementary things.

Well I found very helpful the steps NickDMax wrote.In fact this is the hard part, and I'm trying to do my best.
Of course the practical part is to use an IDE and go from there to write code, create a UI,etc.So, the suggestion about Microsoft Visual Studio is really good and thanks KyleG, because I want to learn writing applications for the Windows platform. I also try to work NetBeans, to create some Java project.
And of course the choice of target platform really matters, so I find absolutely right what mocker wrote, but it's a long road for me, to learn creating applications for Linux or Mac. At this point I prefer to concentrate on Windows platform. And of course, as I am coming from a web development background, and having not to care much about UI for some years, but mainly with program logic, a complete application seems a big deal for me, but with much patience, I think I'm gonna make it.